Defense: Cancer drugs limited intent in 2011 shooting

March 25, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Annamaria Magno Gana, 41, of Tustin Ranch, sits in a Santa Ana courtroom during opening statements March 11, 2013. Gana is facing a murder and attempted murder charge in connection with the Mother's Day 2011 fatal shooting of her husband, Antonio Gana, and non-fatal shooting of her then-16-year-old son. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Annamaria Magno Gana, 41, of Tustin Ranch, arrives in a Santa Ana courtroom for opening statements March 11, 2013. Gana is facing a murder and attempted murder charge in connection with the Mother's Day 2011 fatal shooting of her husband and non-fatal shooting of her then-16-year-old son. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Annamaria Magno Gana, 41, of Tustin Ranch, sits in a Santa Ana courtroom during opening statements March 11, 2013. Gana is facing a murder and attempted murder charge in connection with the Mother's Day 2011 fatal shooting of her husband, Antonio Gana, and non-fatal shooting of her then-16-year-old son. JOSHUA SUDOCK, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SANTA ANA – A Tustin woman cried on the witness stand as she told a jury that she was being treated for cancer, was financially strapped and felt like she desperately needed sleep on Mother's Day 2011 – the day she shot her husband and wounded her teen-aged son.

"I felt like I was dying. I felt like there was no hope," testified Annamaria Magno Gana, 43, during direct examination last week. "I felt like everything was just overwhelming. I felt like every single problem was a big one ... I'm thinking I need to sleep. I need to sleep."

But she insisted she does not remember shooting and killing her husband, Antonio Potenciano Gana, 72, or shooting and seriously wounding her son, Tony, 16, in their home on May 8, 2011.

She said she remembers having the gun in her hand and thinking she wanted to die, but she said she does not remember pulling the trigger.

Her first memory after the shooting, she said, is sitting beside her husband hugging him.

Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh cross-examined Gana on Monday and tried to counter her contention that she did not remember the shootings.

"I wanted to kill everyone," Gana told investigators in an interview the day after the incident, according to portions played by Baytieh.

When investigators asked what that would accomplish, Gana said she was suicidal and wanted her whole family to die with her so no one would suffer from her death.

Gana testified that she does not recall making those and other statements about the incident to investigators.

Defense attorneys say Gana, who was battling cancer then, was delirious and under the influence of multiple drugs at the time of the interview that produced psychosis.

Baytieh contended in his opening statement that Gana planned and made a "self-centered decision" to kill the three family members and herself.

Baytieh said she shot once into the ceiling of her bedroom, shot her husband in the chest when he ran into the room to see what happened, and shot her oldest son in the arm.

Tony Gana survived the shooting. He has testified and has been watching his mother's trial from the center gallery of Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseño's courtroom, in between his father's relatives and supporters who sit on one side of the courtroom, and his mother's family and friends, who sit on the other.

The carnage was stopped, Baytieh said, when Gana's 9-year-old son managed to wrestle the gun out of her hands.

Gana's four defense attorneys do not dispute the shooting, but they claim she did not have the mental state to commit premeditated murder and planned only to kill herself.

Defense attorney Edward Shkolnikov said Gana had gone through a double mastectomy and was undergoing chemotherapy that made her weak and unable to sleep.

Her "judgment is affected, her strength is affected," Shkolnikov said, as she tried to run the family's UPS franchise.

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